My test on how far down the stupid hole I could go here and people would go with.

I stand by the original suggestion. It would fix one of the major holes in HBD. FA bidding is very poorly done.

Signed FAs is more about having 24 hours a day that week to be on the site and knowing the weird ins and outs than about strategy.

It's designed to get max $$ for the pretend players. Not about having the humans who play the game pay the fair market price.

Current system makes it easy for newbies, or even those who think they know what they're doing, to over pay for players. Which results in people dropping teams and leaving really bad contracts behind.

If you think worlds that won't fill because nobody wants to take on the crap teams is a good thing, you like the current FA system. If you think that's bad for HBD, you want the FA system to changed.

At some point, which should be pretty clear, I pulled a Mike in this thread. Started arguing and attacking people for the sake of it. Sorry about that. I was fun while it lasted. Haven't done it since.

Do you understand how RL FA works? It's designed to get max $$ for players. And it's actually more difficult because agents will lie and say "Well, another team is offering 10/167m to your 8/133m" when it's all bullshit. We get a nice, straight answer.

Wow, that took a long time to get through. tufft and MikeT, I didn't realize you guys had such a long, complicated history haha. As for the content...

tufft, you may be correct that FA is flawed... but eBay style bidding does not even resemble a solution, ESPECIALLY if the people here want something resembling Major League Baseball - which they do.

The FA system as it stands is not as broken as you seem to think that it is, however. In the real world, it is not so unlike HBD - exchanging numbers with a free agent, waiting a few hours to hear back while he talks with other teams and considers other offers, and getting an update. I don't need to know what my competitor is offering, nor do I care how much the pretend player makes. I do, however, care that I am being true to my own evaluation of the player, and that I am not over paying based on that evaluation. However, should the contract based on my evaluation become a bust, I have to live with that, and that is part of the game.

In real life, people are signed to bad contracts, and teams have to live with them. Yes, it could be a downside to a new player that his team was stuck with bad contracts. I have been playing for four seasons, and had my fair share when I inherited the team - but that increased the appeal to me. "How can I turn this thing around with all of these obstacles to overcome?" It increased the need for strategy as well.

You seem to think that most of us that don't want a major overhaul of the current system just empathize so much with these fake players. I don't care what my player is paid (as long as it is not more than however I valued him). However, your stance exists to be sympathetic to the owners. It's like you just want the owners to get the best end of every deal. On that note, you should realize that that is not realistic, either. In today's MLB, more often than not, the player gets the better end of the deal. It's the current state of the MLB. You can thank Curt Flood for that. But if you want a game that resembles the MLB, this is as realistic as you can find. There's a strong sense of strategy needed as it stands currently.

I love Major League Baseball. I have dreamed of being in a front office somewhere since I was a middle schooler, and as a result, I absolutely love this game. The game that you have said that you want is not one that closely resembles Major League Baseball, but I do hope that one day you can find whatever game it is for which you're searching.